The Lovely Little Monsters
by Katherine-E-Kora
Summary: I do not remember the past. I do not care either. All that matters is that we stay together...that we escape. But, to where? Plagued by haunting visions of a past no one remembers, Ralph and the boys are convinced that they're beasts. Monsters. Unwanted by society. But can Ralph convince his friends that they are worth something, or will their second chance be all for naught?
1. Chapter 1

**Hello. If you haven't noticed yet, I've deleted a few of my hiatus/older stories that I have no desire to update and/or aren't any good. I plan on putting them back up as soon as I edit and improve them...so, don't worry if it's one that you liked! It'll come back eventually. As for my hiatus, it's over for all of the other stories I haven't deleted! They will be updated tonight!**

**Yay! *Does happy dance***

**I decided, since my other short story, Clue and Note, has only one more chapter, that I would post this short story as well, or at least start on it. Tell me what you guys think of all these short stories in the reviews! I rather enjoy them...cough cough.**

**Anyway, thanks for reading and putting up with me! This will always be my favorite fandom...There's so much you can do with the characters. Especially Bill. I have to say, he's probably one of my favorites simply because you really can do anything with him and it will still be in character...hehehe.**

**Roger's best character, though. Always best character...**

* * *

Katherine Esther Kora proudly presents:

The Lovely Little Monsters.

A Lord Of the Flies Fanfiction.

Chapter One: Beasts

I cannot remember how or when I got here. I cannot remember much of anything, honestly. But I do remember all of them. The beautiful little monsters. And I remember how badly I wanted them to be safe. All I wanted was to protect them.

So that's what I did.

My name is Ralph, at least that's what I tell myself. It's written on a yellow wristband around my arm. Every day, when I awake, I take several minutes just to remind and convince myself. My name is Ralph, and I must protect the little monsters.

They are silent most of the time, but I know that they are there. They're always there. Where else is there to go? We're confined to our cells day in and day out, lights-on and lights-off time, never let out or able to see the outside. Yet, for some reason I know what that looks like too. I wrap my pale fingers around the bars for a moment and close my eyes, pressing my forehead to the cold metal. I feel my favorite one reaching out to me. Not physically, but mentally. There's a push at the taut line of my mind's inner being.

"Simon." I whisper, "You okay?"

"Yes." He answers aloud. "I just wanted to know what you were thinking."

"Okay. Just making sure."

"Me too."

We are all monsters here. Disfigured on the inside, and rejected from normal society. Savage beasts that know no home. I'm not sure why I'm here, but there must be a reason. Because I wouldn't be here for nothing, would I? I must be a monster too.

That's what I think when I press my head against the bars. I must be a monster. I must be special. I just don't know it yet.

At night, I sing them all the song I made up. The one that, for some reason, just came to my mind one time and never got out.

"Lovely little monsters," The chorus goes, "we are right here for just a little while, so carry this away, and sing no more, there they are, see them? watch them go...Lovely little monsters, we were right here now and will we ever see this again or sing anymore? There they are, see them? There we are, running, there they are. All gunned down, in a row."

I always hear someone whimpering in their sleep if I sing that last part. I can't be sure which one of them it is, but I'm pretty good at guessing.

"Roger, you're crying again." I raise my voice so that it will reach him, all the way in the last cell down.

"No." He always answers, sniffling, "I'm not. I just had that dream. The one about the water and the white room."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be." He shoots back, "I'm not a baby, Ralph, I can handle myself."

"Are you thirsty?"

"No. I'm never thirsty here."

"Was there ever not a here? Can you remember it?" I ask hopefully.

"No." He responds, "I cannot. But I know it's there."

"Me too."

"I bet there's a lot of blood to drink out there, huh?"

"All that you want, Roger." I answer him, pressing myself further into the bars, as if that alone would carry my voice to him and give them all some glean of hope, however dim it was. "All you want."

Jack is a demon. I don't mean that in a mean way. It's just what he is. He can't help it.

There's nobody else in his cell but him. He's the one before Roger's. Most days, I pity him. Jack Merridew, he told me once, was his name and continues to be his name now. Roger refers to him as the chief for some reason. I don't know why, and I've never questioned it.

He's always so quiet.

"Jack, are you there?" I plead, "Talk?"

"Shut up." He mumbles. Just barely audible. But it assures me that he's still alive, and that's enough for the moment.

I know all of their names by heart and by instinct. There's Simon, and Roger, and Bill and Jack Merridew and Maurice and Samneric and a ghost named Piggy who hangs around some days. They tend to be the days when I'm feeling the saddest, the days when not even thinking help me recover from the depths of depression. These are the days when not even Simon can pull me back. I don't want to let anyone see this side of me. I want to be the strong one, the one that is perfect and can comfort them. But I'm not perfect. And, truth be told, sometimes I need comforting too.

Bill and Maurice share a cell next to mine. They are very close, nearly brothers. Maurice helps me a lot with his outgoing personality.

Bill rarely says a word.

He can turn invisible from time to time. Not on his own accord, but whenever his powers feel like glitching out. This is another reason why I'm thankful for Maurice; he can always see Bill.

Samneric are the twins. They can communicate telepathically and use telekinesis. Roger is a blood-drinker, which isn't really a power, but it does make him a monster, I suppose. A sadist, Jack called it once, a bloody sadist. Simon can hook into other people's minds selectively, draining or lending them power, reading their thoughts and such. He doesn't like to do that, though. Only with permission. I've already granted him mine.

I may not be perfect, but the monsters are always perfect. Always.

At least, to me.

My name is Ralph. My name is Ralph. My name is Ralph...

This is where I always trail off, leaving myself with nothing else to say or think. If I say it too many times, I'm afraid that my name will become meaningless; nothing more than a jumble of indiscriminate symbols and sounds. I cannot let that happen. Because, truthfully, it's one of the few things left I have to hold on to.

One day something changed. It was a switch in the mood, in the air around us. All of a sudden, we started to talk to each other. For the first time, I felt like I actually knew each and every one of them. I felt like we all had a chance of being friends, even here, in our separate cells.

"Man, I hate this place." Jack laughed, "It's so boring, you know?"

"Yup." Maurice agreed, grinning through his voice. I saw his hands through the bars of my own cell, wrapping themselves together in worry. "Got that right. I wish they'd at least give us something to do. Like arts and crafts or something."

"Pfft." Roger stifled laughter from the way end of the hall, "Are you insane, kid? Arts and crafts? What do you think we'd do with those? Hang ourselves with pipe cleaners?"

"It might be fun." Simon piped up nervously.

"Hm." Bill put in.

"Do you think we'll ever be-"

"-Let out of here?" Samneric asked in their broken, strange way of talking. I could swear that it must've sounded a lot better in their heads when they finished each-other's sentences like that, but aloud it just sounded plain weird. It was still okay though. It made them unique.

"I don't think so." Maurice whimpered. Somewhere in the back of his cage, Roger growled. This shut the twins up. They were scared to death of Roger for some reason. Maybe he was deformed or something. I'd forgotten what they all looked like, if I'd even ever seen them before, so I wouldn't know. But I also wouldn't be one to judge. I didn't know what I looked like myself. There were no mirrors in a place like this, only damp puddles. And even then, they were all very murky and shallow, inhabited by dark and feeble, tiny creatures that swirled about their mysterious waters. Like a little ocean, with its own little sea-giants.

They were giant enough to fit in the puddle, at least.

"We could." I spoke up, "I bet we could."

"How?" Jack scoffed, "Us?"

"Yeah." I affirmed, "How do we know we can't? We've never tried, have we? I mean, I've never even seen anyone else here besides us."

"He's got a point." Simon agreed quietly.

"I suppose." Jack grumbled, "But I think it's a little dangerous. Even if I do really want to get out…where would we go?"

I thought about this for a moment. Where could I take them all so that they could live peacefully? Was there even a place for things such as us? What was the big, wide world like? I remember, it had oceans as big as you could hope to see, and trees and something called wind that pushed against your face like an invisible curtain, like a soft wall. I closed my bright blue eyes and thought deeply about all these things. How much I wanted them to actually be true, and not just something I thought up in my unlimited spare time.

"We could go…anywhere." I responded, distant, "Anywhere we wanted. Does it really matter? As long as it's not here, who cares?"

"How would we escape? Aren't we—" Sam started on his own. Eric picked up the sentence for him, and finished with:

"—worthless."

"They're right." Maurice sighed. I imagined him hanging his head a bit as he spoke. I turned and smashed myself up to the bars again, trying to get a glimpse of someone. Simon reached a hand through his cell bars and I took it instinctively in my own. It was very warm. Not like anything I was used to. "We can't do anything useful…"

"Well…" I began, hesitantly, "Maurice, you can…can't you go through walls or something?"

"Yeah, but they put that cuff on me."

"Oh…" I stopped, but then went on again, talking with whatever words my mind brought forth, speaking without reason, but with hope. "But, you can cheer people up, and you can keep track of Bill. And Bill, you can disappear. I think that's pretty useful."

"For what?"

"For tricking the enemy!" I fervently said. "And Jack and Roger, you guys are good fighters! Jack, you're strong, and Roger, you're smart if you put your mind to something!"

"Really?" Roger asked. Jack huffed something under his breath, but I ignored them both and continued listing everyone off.

"Samneric, you two can control things from far away with your mind! That's very useful!"

"You really—"

"—think that?"

"Absolutely!" I practically shouted. I gave Simon's hand a squeeze and went on to him. "Simon, you can lend us strength. You can help us that way, right?"

"Yes, Ralph." He responded.

"Your speech won't open the cage doors." Roger scoffed, "This is getting us nowhere."

Jack took up Roger's side of things with: "He's right. But, we might be able to escape, if we had a plan…"

"Let's make a plan, then." I breathily told everyone.

"...We can—" Sam offered

"—unlock the doors." Eric completed.

"See, you're not worthless." I smiled, triumphant at last. They were thinking for themselves now.

"I'll take some guards out." Roger offered, not one to be out-done by the younger boys, "I could go for a good fight. How about you, jack?"

"Yeah." The other boy chuckled, "I'm itching for some blood too, Rog."

"Cool." Roger answered darkly. They both started to laugh excitedly. It sounded…fresh. New. Very childlike and innocent, just two friends about to have some fun.

"Now?" Simon asked in a whisper.

"No." I shook my head, as if he could see that.

"Tonight." Jack offered.

"That sounds good." I responded, "That sounds good."

* * *

**For those of you wondering, this fic will be kind of like Only If For a Night, except from Ralph's perspective this time around. It's gonna be about that length, and I think give the same general feeling...I think. I'm not sure how many chapters I'll need yet, but it's no more than ten, no less than five. If any of you liked OIFAN and want me to do more with other characters from LOTF (I know I got a request for a Piggy one...), then feel free to tell me! I like writing them...meep.**

**Just now right now. lol. I kind of have a lot of irons going, if you haven't noticed...That's my fault. I apologize if it bothers any of you, but once I have an idea I just have to write it down...**

**Anyway, hope you'll continue reading!**

**WRITE YA LATER!**


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

"Are you sure about this?" Simon asked worriedly. I reached my hands through the bars and took one of his in both of mine, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

"Surer than sure." I answered, being careful in disturbing the silence. It felt so fragile at this moment…I felt as if someone might here us. These were precious times. "We'll be fine."

The lock on my cage door shivered in the normally still dark. Two pairs of yellow-brown eyes winked open about half-way as high as me, glinting softly with subtle intelligence. For a second, I couldn't tell if they belonged to one, four-eyed monster or two identical ones. Then it hit me. Suddenly, I was ashamed that I hadn't realized it straight-away.

"Sam?" I called in a strained whisper, "Eric? That's you two, right?"

"Yes."

"It is."

I snaked my fingers out of Simon's and replaced my arms inside my cell. Testing, I gave the bars a light push. The door creaked open without protest, sighing in its metal-and-rust spite.

I couldn't believe it. My breath left me entirely.

It worked. My plan had worked. Of course, not two seconds later the lights flooded on, filling the large room with light, and an alarm blared to life. I clasped my hands over my ears and ducked out of the small cage that had previously confined me. Quickly, guided now by the flickering flood lights and common sense, Sam and Eric and I began to unlatch the cage doors. Simon was the first I reached for, fumbling to pull out the latch. Once undone, I threw open the door and pulled him to his feet. We fell into step as we regrouped with the others, hidden from the sharpshooters gathered on a balcony above us in a cement hallway, gathering our bearings in a loose circle. This was a first time meeting each other face-to-face here. I'm quite sure—by the looks on their faces—that they expected each other to be grotesque and deformed. They expected actual monsters. But we were just normal people. And—at the moment—there was no time for proper introductions. A bullet shredded the air near my ear, as I stood closest to the wall, and on an instinct I ducked. Startled, we scattered, pressing ourselves against the concrete. A dark-haired, pallid boy with bright red eyes hissed at the balconies above, where the countless people in white peered at us through gun-sights. I could only assume that the maker of this noise was Roger. I don't know how, but for some reason everyone's appearance was suddenly very familiar and recognizable. My eyes darted to an open door at the end of the concrete room. My mind worked on overdrive, trying to formulate a plan.

"See that door?" I pointed out to the boy next to me. His bright red hair had become a target in the onslaught, and now he was on his toes on a whim. The moment he spared me a glance—daring and wicked through a veil of sky-blue—I knew it was Jack. He half-turned towards the door in question and spat.

"Yeah? Are we just gonna make a run for it?" He asked. It was Jack's voice alright. Scathing and skeptical and full of contempt.

"I think so." I responded above the blare of the alarm, "Spread the word! On the count of two!"

"Why two?"

"Because I'll have to yell so everyone can hear." I explained with a smile, "And they'll be expecting three!"

I waited for a few moments for Jack to do as said. After about five minutes, he turned back to me with a lopsided grin. I couldn't help but to smile back. Wow. It had only been ten minutes of freedom and already we were all friends.

"Hey, Ralph, Roger wanted to know if me and him could have a little bit of fun with the guards. You know, pay 'em back for all that stuff they did." The red-head asked.

"Uh, sure." I quickly agreed, then flushing, "But, how'd you know I was Ralph?"

"'Cause you're just the type." Jack shrugged, "Plus, your voice is a dead-giveaway."

"Oh…okay." I sighed, then: "ONE!"

The firing on the sides of us halted upon my shouting. I paused for a moment and listened. My own breathing and the breathing of my monsters around me roared in my ears. Even the echoes of the sharpshooters as they gave orders became crystal clear. The air itself possessed a noise to my enhanced senses. I was on overload. I was full to bursting with new information.

Everything was slowed down. Everything made sense.

"TWO!" I shrieked. Without hesitation, I darted out from cover. Someone was beside me, panting heavily with the effort from running. I spared them an anxious glance. It was Simon, working hard to stay close. I grabbed one of his hands and kept running, pumping my legs even harder and harder until they screamed from the task. Still, I couldn't let up. A few bullets ripped through the air near my face, and I was once more plunged into a surreal world in which my senses were heightened to an unreal type of thing. But this time, only for a second. Then, it was back to shrieks and sprinting. Simon and I reached the end of the hall in record time and hid in the scant cover of the doorway, waiting for others. He huddled against me, shivering and gasping from our journey. I put my arm around him. Both for protection and comfort. Then, I scanned the room over for everyone else. Samneric tumbled into the doorway right behind us, and Simon and I moved to make room. What must have been Bill and Maurice were in the center of the room, dancing around a barrage of gunfire. Roger and Jack, in the meantime…well…they were certainly…having fun with things.

Roger backed up from the balcony, staring up at it with anticipation glowing in his eyes. At first, I couldn't quite tell what he was doing, but then he started running. In a split second, he'd vaulted himself onto the overhang and kicked over one of the gaurds. He was joined by Jack only a moment later, and the two nodded before Roger tackled the guard and wrestled with him for his gun. After the guard had been relieved of it and Jack had started to draw most of the other fire away, the little blood-sucker pushed the downed guard's head back and sank his teeth into the soft flesh of his neck, releasing a sticky red tide. I covered Simon's eyes and looked to Jack instead. The red-headed demon was currently flipping over guards nimbly, kicking them over the ledge of the balcony in a very show-offy sort of way. When Roger was finished with his work, he took the gun he'd stolen from the now dead shooter and ran, slamming it into the chest of the nearest man to him. The white-coated man choked out at least a gallon of blood and collapsed onto the metal grating. Roger proceeded to flip the matte-black gun over so that it pointed the proper direction, and fired into the remaining guards. Jack dodged out of the way, swinging back over the rail of the balcony and meeting up with Bill and Maurice on the ground. Together, they made their way over to the rest of us. Roger did the same, after giving a white-coat a good kick for extra measure and wiping off his hands on his black jumpsuit, of course. He gave us all a wicked, toothy grin, still dripping scarlet down his chin, and fluidly rested the muzzle of the gun on his shoulder.

"Quite something, ain't it?" Roger darkly chuckled, "That was the most fun I've had in…well, ever."

"I guess." I winced, removing my hand from Simon's eyes. He pushed his hair out of his face and squinted to adjust. "Look, Roger, I know you had to feed and stuff…but…next time, could you give me a little warning? There are children with us."

"I'm a children." He pointed out with a cruel smirk.

"Please?" I pleaded adamantly.

"Oh, come on." He waved off, "I was just joking. Yeah, I'll warn you."

"Thanks." I sighed.

There was a long pause.

"Well." Jack huffed, laughing to himself a bit at something I didn't quite get. I turned to him in the narrow doorway. He looked back proudly, but I could see past the front. He was just as on-edge as the rest of us. "Hello, everyone. My name is Jack Merridew, and I can sing C-sharp!" At this, we all laughed for some reason. He went on: "I have a feeling that all of us here are going to get along smashingly."


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

We took turns with formal introductions after that, walking calmly through the halls of the seemingly empty government prison we'd been confined in. Bill greeted us all with a meek wave, not saying much, just that his name was Bill and also that he didn't like talking much. His skin was average, with a light pattering of freckles—less noticeable than Jack's. He had eyes the color of mossy seawater…though, I'd only a vague clue of what that even looked like. Bill's hair lay flat and course on his head, just reaching past his eyes so that he had to constantly push it away; he didn't want its muddy-brown color to cover his vision. Maurice Volunteered to talk next, which was a thing we found he was rather good at. His personality was the polar opposite of Bill's, and it left me wondering how the two boys got along so well. Maurice was also a little fuller than bill, less skin-and-bones and more substance. Not over-weight, just kind of childish still, with his curly brown mess of a head and his excited grey eyes. Once Maurice started talking, he would not shut up. His cheerful voice echoed about on the concrete walls and floors and ceilings. It was a while before anyone else got to go.

I knew Simon well enough, but he went next anyways, raising his tiny hand in the air for permission. I granted it with a nod, and he shyly smiled at the approval.

"My name is Simon." He said, "And—"

"—the things you draw come true." Jack broke in absent-mindedly.

"No." Simon went on, slightly confused by the red-head's outburst, "I can channel mental wavelengths and strengths. And…I am…seven years old? I think…"

"Good." I smiled back. He did a little skip and walked closer to me. Samneric picked up where Simon left off, once more talking in their strange and familiar verve.

"My name's Sam," The first said.

The other finished, "And my name's Eric."

"You already know—"

"—what we can do."

"Yes, and it helped us escape. We couldn't have done it without you guys." I commended. Studiously, I glanced them over. If you looked close enough, Sam was just slightly taller than Eric. That would be helpful later, I supposed.

"My name's Roger." Roger introduced last, keeping his tone to a low growl. For some reason, Samneric drew away and once I saw them shiver. How strange. Had they known each other before we were locked up? I wonder if they remembered what the real world was like… "I drink blood and—"

Roger was cut off abruptly as he fell back in the line and went to retching up his earlier breakfast in a corner. Jack rolled his china-blue eyes and Samneric, Maurice and Bill turned away. I patted Simon on the shoulder, telling him to stay put, and walked over to help. Once I acted, Jack too followed, falling in besides the ill sort-of vampire. We looked at the color. Red. Go figure.

"You don't make a good vampire, mate!" Jack laughed, all in good humor, but Roger glanced up from his sickness and threw him a look that begged to differ. The red-head backed off.

"Are you okay?" I asked, genuinely worried. Sure, Roger was in all areas terrifying, but that didn't mean at all that I was just going to leave him throwing up all over the place like this.

"I'm…" He answered between bouts of sickness, "…fine! What…do you want! Just…leave me alone! Bugger off…blech. Gross…"

"Nearly finished?" I sighed.

"…Yeah…" Roger responded, downtrodden. He'd stopped puking all over and stood up straight again, wiping off his face with the too-long sleeve of his jumpsuit. We all wore one, all different colors of stitching, but the fabric and main look was the same. Roger's stitching was red, Maurice's was grey, and so on. I think they all matched the colors of our eyes. Or…something like that. "I'm good. Let's go, before those losers find us again and gun us down."

His words reminded me of my song. Not wanting it to come true, I followed both him and Jack as they met up with the others. We walked on this way for quite a while, making small talk. We weren't quite sure what to do with ourselves, now that we were free. Where would we go? Someone brought up that we should go to the beach. Someone else asked what a beach was. However, the question wasn't whether or not we should go to the beach. The question was an underlying fear we all had, something that we could not suppress. Something utterly frightening to us.

Escape. Where do we go? What do we do now?

We did not know. Instead of answering outright, someone changed the topic for us. Our minds and bodies were already tired as it was. There was no need in boggling them even more so.

"Ralph, you never introduced yourself." Simon interjected.

"He's right!" Jack scoffed, "What's wrong? Shy?"

"No." I laughed nervously, "I just don't like drawing too much attention to myself."

"That's called being shy, dummy."

"You're our leader, aren't you?" Maurice jibed, "We can't follow somebody that's a mysterious-mystery guy! That would be like…impossible." He said that as if it was awe-inspiring to him. I rolled my eyes.

"Hey, who said anything about Ralph being leader?" Jack huffed, "I think I should be leader."

"Nobody's leader." I shot back, "This is a democracy, guys."

"Demo-who-what?" Maurice gaped.

"Like, we're all in charge equally." I tried to explain, not really having a good grip on the meaning of the word myself, "We all get to have a say, then we vote on the best option…"

"We'll never get anything done like that." Jack scoffed, "Everyone would just vote for your own idea."

"Well, you wouldn't be able to do that. We'd have to make rules about that." I defended.

"I like Ralph's idea." Simon shyly commented. I patted him on the head, and he held fast to my arm, stroking it gently every-so-often. If he was any older, it would've been slightly creepy, but in the given situation and how young he was, it was actually a little endearing.

"Thank you, Simon." I awarded. He grinned sloppily.

"Of course Simon likes your idea." Jack huffed.

"Hey, you're still my chief." Roger told Jack, "I can call you that if you'd like."

"Why would you call me that?" Jack asked, taken aback.

"Well…because…aren't you a demon or something?" Roger asked.

"Yeah." Jack responded.

"So, you're a demon, and I'm a vampire, so you must be my chief in some sort of way…I don't know why, really." Roger stumbled, "I'm just…it just came to mind."

"Fine." I broke in, eager to finish this line of conversation as well, "Jack can be called chief if you want, but we're all going to have an equal say. Or, if you like better, Jack and I can share power equally since we're the oldest and you guys can vote on our ideas or give us your ideas or whatever. Which one?"

"I actually like the second one." Maurice laughed. Wrapping an arm around Bill and making the quieter boy blunder away uncomfortably, he smiled wider, "Ain't that right, Bill?"

"Eh…eh….um…sure…" Bill stuttered, "Just, get off of me already!"

"Whatever." Maurice waved him away, and Bill shot him a dirty glare. "You suck the fun out of everything. Fun-sucker. Bill's a fun-sucker."

"We think—"

"—the second sounds very nice." The twins smiled. They were mirrors of the other, like half a person being reflected back to me. Their smiles were even similar, it seemed.

"Alright." I consented, nodding towards Roger and Jack, "How about you two? What do you think? Jack?"

"I think it's alright. I don't really care either way." Roger shrugged.

"Sounds jolly good to me." Jack grinned at me in an offering of friendship. I did the same back, and for the first time I actually felt as if nothing could go wrong. We were in the clear. We would get out and live happily ever after.

"So, you still haven't introduced yourself, Ralphie-boy." The red-head reminded. I puffed a sigh and laughed, trying to rub them away again. Did it really matter?

"Yeah, I know." I said back, "But you all already know my name at this point, I think we're past introductions."

"Just say it yourself and this will all stop." Maurice jeered on with Jack. He got too close to me and I shoved him away in frustration. Seriously, that boy had no sense of personal space. He was in _my bubble_. That given, so was Simon. But, at least Simon was smaller and less…_obnoxious._

"Fine." I scowled, "My name is Ralph. Happy?" And I added at the last minute, just to be honest outright: "I don't know my powers. But I sometimes see this ghost in my dreams named Piggy."

"I see him too." Simon picked up.

"That's only because you spy on my mind while I sleep." I slyly poked him in the nose and he sneezed. We all laughed.

"I'll try to stop that…" The young boy indignantly said when his sneezing fit was over. I rolled my eyes. "_Try_."

"Try harder."


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

"…_There they are, all gunned down in a row…"_

…

Sleep was difficult. Roger offered to take first watch; he claimed that his stomach still hurt, and that he was the most rational choice anyway, having a gun and all. I allowed this. He sounded like he needed some time to himself anyway. Still, even with the watch, nobody could rest easy. We were all on edge, waiting for an alarm, waiting for someone to find us. And when I finally did slip into something of a fitful type of slumber, it was only interrupted by another one of my dear friends.

I blinked open my eyes to a stark-white room, blurred and covered in fog. It was seemingly endless, and I don't believe that any walking would get me to any distinct location. Instead, I sat and waited for him to arrive. I knew he would. He always did when I dreamt of this room.

"Piggy." I said aloud as he stepped through the smoke. He was wispy and glowing and faint. This dream wouldn't be as long as the others.

The boy adjusted his glasses on his round face and frowned. I mirrored this. What was with the worry?

"Ralph." He replied, not waiting for a response from me, "You have to take them back."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You have to go back to the rooms." He explained further, anxious and worried; I could tell by the way his features wrinkled up and his voice trembled, "You have to, you see? Don't you know—d"

"—I can't take them back now!" I objected sternly. Usually, his advice was wise. But not today. "We've already gotten so far!"

"But you haven't even made it halfway to the exit yet, Ralph!" Piggy shouted. It was very unlike him. I startled, back. "Do you know what they can do to you?! What they will do to you?! What makes you think that all of you are so special!? You hated each other a few months ago!"

"What are you going on about, Piggy?" I angrily retorted, "There's not even anybody following us. We're fine."

"Not that you can see." Piggy sighed, defeated, "But, since you're insisting on going ahead with this anyway, I might as well advise you on that. Now, you can't say I didn't warn you about the consequences…"

"Go on."

"In order to get out," He started. The misty room started to slip away from me, and he did too. Gradually, I was plunged into feathery blackness, with only Piggy's voice for reference. I must be waking up. "A sacrifice must be made. You will all be broken. But you will get out…at a high cost."

What could possibly mean that much? I thought.

Then, I woke gasping on the hard pavement of the facility, feeling as if someone had thrown me there like a wet dish-towel. I sat up, shivering.

What a bad omen. If Piggy thought I was crazy, what we were doing must really be a bad idea.

"Ralph?" A voice asked in the dark. Then, it yawned. "Is that you? Are you up?"

"Yes." I gathered myself up enough to say, "You're still on guard, Roger?"

"Mmhm."

"You can get some rest. I'll take watch the rest of the night."

There was no objection. Within five minutes he was asleep, and I was once again plunged into loneliness, with no one but my mind for company. I couldn't help but wish desperately that Simon had taken my wishes to heart and stayed out of that dream.

I decided not to tell them. It was better if they didn't know.

* * *

"Do we even know where we're going?!" Jack growled to me, fury filling his bright blue eyes. He and I headed up the lines of boys, walking throughout the large complex of concrete and metal and foul fluorescent lights. He was angry because he thought I had been leading them in circles for hours. I probably had been, but that was beside the point. It was our job to keep everyone else confident about this trek, and right now I could tell that no one was feeling all too confident about lazy, meandering hallways.

"No." I muttered, "But we're bound to get somewhere…"

"Some plan!" He snorted disdainfully.

"You got something better?!" I shouted, suddenly very angered by his blatant show of disrespect. Déjà vu, I felt for some reason. Well, we were supposed to be working together, weren't we? For the better good? What happened to that plan?!

At this show of unsettled fury, Jack turned bright red and looked away.

"I don't have one."

"That's what I thought!" I shot back, "Now, go together with this or we stop until we figure out something better, ya hear?"

Instead of answering, Jack grimaced and marched a little bit ahead of the pack.

_Stupid,_ I thought, _so he's at again…_

The next night was rough. I couldn't bear to sleep, for the nightmares of death and dying pursued me wherever I went, especially in sleep. There was no more Piggy. There were only his screams. The white room was awful smelling and dank and suddenly very small.

I forgot to sing that night.

* * *

We woke to the sound of bullet-fire; a hail of twisted hell raining down on us from the stationary turrets that must have been hooked up to security wiring or something like that. Jack must have dozed off during his turn at watch. What a leader he made…I checked the thought. If I thought like that, I was just as bad as he was, wasn't I? Shaking my head and scurrying around a nearby corner and out of range of the bullets, I took in my surroundings. About a hundred feet out, my group was struggling to dodge the turrets. Instead of staying safe, I rushed blindly back out to them and crashed into a cement wall. Ow. Something hot and furious grazed my shoulder and jolted away.

"Stay together!" I ordered, rolling painfully to the ground as another burst of bullets thundered through.

"But then it will be easier to pick us off!" Jack contradicted, nearly barreling into a very frantic Simon as he spoke, "We gotta split!"

"Serpentine! Serpentine!" Maurice quipped, laughing jovially. He bounced around on one foot and as a result was blasted back a few feet by exploding concrete. I rolled my eyes, but smiled. Now, if only he was as good at dodging as he was at joking.

"What are we doing, Ralph?" Simon cried, attempting to crawl a bit closer when some shrapnel caught him in the arm and struck him into submission. I glanced back to the corner where I'd first escaped. I'd bolted when the attack first started, before they had the chance to pick me up on the cameras…there was no chance all of us would make it now…Turning back to Simon's struggle, I darted forward and pulled him into a new scant cover—behind me. Jack shot me an enraged glance.

"We can't keep up like this!" He growled. I knew it was true, too. That was the worst part. "It's every…monster…for themselves!"

"We have to STAY TOGETHER!"

"They'll kill us all!" Jack insisted.

"Stop fighting, you two!" Simon wailed, "Please!"

"Chief!" Roger called adamantly, "Plan! Now!"

"What…What are we doing?" Bill asked from the middle of the grey hall. His mouth was curved into a tense but free concentration, though he was currently dodging bullet-fire left and right, deflecting shrapnel with his arms—he looked relatively happy, strange enough. A sizable chunk of concrete bounced off his elbow and he winced; it went on to ricochet off the wall, and Bill took another blow to the knee.

Meanwhile, Jack and I were in a tumultuous battle of wills, glaring each other down with poison daggers in our eyes.

There was a scream above the ringing metal.

I'd never heard such a horrible scream.

"BILL!" Maurice cried, in anguish, "BILL! Oh my God! Bill!"

I chanced tearing away from the miniature war I was waging with my counterpart to look at what had just happened. Big mistake. Shaking, I cupped my hand around Simon's wide eyes for the second time and pulled him back. Jack and Roger gaped. Samneric, who had figured out that getting to the corner and the blind-spot was the safest bet, peered around the corner in disbelief; they were double visions of horror. All audible sound had once again been drained from me; by white noise, by terror. By something I thought may have been called sorrow that wrapped an iron fist around my heart and twisted as hard as it could without ripping the ephereal organ out of my chest entirely.

Bill was dead, bullet holes riddling his twisted, emaciated form, crumpled in the pooling blood.

Only a second later, Maurice rushed forward and they put a hole in his head too. One clean shot. That was all it took to kill a monster.

"Let's just go." I whispered, voice trembling. By some miracle they all still heard me. In a daze, we stumbled out of the main hall and met up with Samneric—pulled only by our legs, and what we thought was right.

What _I_ thought was right.

_There's no rules about this…there were never any rules about this…_

* * *

_"We've lost them."_

_"Take them to the back."_

_"But—"_

_Beeeeeee—_

* * *

**Ah...I'm so sorry about character death this early in, but this fic isn't going to be very long, so I have to condense it. Plus, I don't want a whole crap ton of filler chapters of them just walking about in the halls...**

**Anywho, thanks for reading, and I'm sorry I haven't updated in a while. And clue and note as well...hmm. I need to update that soon. As you probably have seen, I've been a little busy with Epic Party Time, and wrapping that up all nice and pretty. Though, that's not done yet, either...sigh.**

**Thanks for reviewing everybody, especially this early in! I would thank all of you and respond personally, but...eh...I'm too lazy...and I need to go make chocolate chip cookies and other things...yeah. That's important, right?**

**hehe.**

**Well, thanks for reading and hanging in there!**

**And, please don't hate me...eep...**

**WRITE YA LATER!**


	5. Chapter 5

LOVELY LITTLE MONSTERS

Chapter Five

"My leg hurts." Sam winced as we trudged onward through the seemingly endless concrete corridors, dragging his left leg painstakingly behind him. Eric kept up by slowing his own steps and shuffling his feet.

I motioned for Jack, Roger and Simon to go on without us and knelt down to be eye-level with the slightly taller twin. His skin was nearly transclucent with sickness. I feared the worst, and when he rolled up the pant leg of his outfit these worries were only confirmed. I held my breath. Eric looked about ready to pass out, though he had no reason for it other than disbelief. Sam met my eyes in an unasked question. I shook my head almost imperceptibly. Of course he'd be alright. Of course infection hadn't set in. Of course.

When he told us all three days before that the bullet had got him in the leg, I had thought it might turn out this way. Now we played the waiting game; this was perhaps the worst game of all. Worse than this terrible game of hide and go seek we played with our capturers. Worse than the battle with our own minds over sanity and insanity-which may or may not have already been lost long ago. In this new game we could only watch. There were two possible ends to this: life and death. Death would be horrible. Life would maybe be even worse. Depending on the circumstances; I wasn't all that sure yet.

* * *

Jack and I argued often after Bill and Maurice's deaths. Although, we kept it quiet, and during watch, when everyone else was sleeping.

"This is all our fault." I half-heartedly whispered to the darkness, "I can't believe they...they're..."

"Our fault?" He would growl back, "This is your fault, Ralph. It was your idea to escape, not mine."

"You wanna be the only leader then, from now on?" I spat, "Do you want to take care of them and tell them all that it's going to be alright? I know you're good at lying Jack. So why don't you?"

There was never an answer. Nobody wanted to be in charge of marching corpses.

* * *

I never really questioned why we never had to eat. Not once during our adventure did anyone ever complain about hunger. I was starting to think it was the shock of everything that had happened, but there was that other answer-the right one-that kept nagging at the back of my head. I didn't want to open the door for that possibility if I didn't have to. Sighing, I kicked a stray chunk of grey stone that had fallen from an uncertain origin. it clattered against the narrow wall and bounced behind us. Our progress was slow and meandering, tapering at some points to near nothingness. I wished Piggy was here. I wished I could talk to him again. He was always smarter than I was, better at knowing what to do.

Simon had all but claimed my right arm. He clutched on to it for dear life, shivering and muttering things under his breath about hope. I pulled him a little closer and let out a breath. He snapped out of his trance and looked up at me.

"Ralph I'm having weird dreams." He confessed worriedly.

"Dreams?" I frowned. Maybe Piggy was in them. Simon seemed to sense where my thoughts were headed and shook his head profusely.

"Nightmares." He breathed. "Last night I had a dream about dying. At least, I think it was about dying, Ralph. It was scary. There were white walls and everything was loud and screamed at me." Simon's eyes were wide with fear as he added, "Ralph, what if it's real? I'm scared of dying."

"You won't die. I won't let you die." I asserted. "It was only a nightmare."

"Isn't this a nightmare, too?" Roger grumbled from directly behind me. Jack snorted in laughter.

"Stop being so freaking deep all the time, Roger. That's stupid." He shot at his right-hand-man, "You sound like an idiot when he talk like that."

"I don't think so." Eric spoke up hollowly. I dropped back in the formation enough to see Roger give Eric a quick, formal nod of recognition and Eric flinch back. I never understood why the twins and Roger never really got along, why they were so uncomfortable around each other. Maybe it had something to do with that question and the real answer. Maybe it was one of those things that was better to ignore. If I thought about it too hard I might hurt myself and, consequently, everyone else in the process.

* * *

By the end of the fifth day, Roger had puked five and a half times and all of us were holding our noses. The halls were opening up more as we went, but that in no way helped dissipate the horrible stench emanating from Sam's wound. I'd had to help him cut the fabric out of it earlier in the day. The skin was rotten and putrid and, overall, infected. I looked at him when I was done with meager, fake, assurance glittering in my eyes. But he knew better. We exchanged a smile, exchanged a reassuring look, but he knew what was happening. He had always been a little brighter than Eric, after all. But I'm pretty sure that had nothing to do with it.

I was surprised that no one had launched another attack on us so far. After all, we were probably at our weakest. Especially our supposed vampire, who was perhaps even sicker than Sam was with all of his vomiting. It would be easy to track us here. Even easier to kill us. But no one showed up and I didn't object.

"Ralph." Sam moaned, "I can't walk much farther. Please, can we stop? Just for now. Like, five minutes...just five minutes."

I stopped and so did the rest of the procession. Jack and Roger huddled at the outskirts of the circle, the former supporting the very nauseous latter by the shoulder. The motion of halting seemed to spin him around even more, and he gagged. I looked away.

Simon glanced up at me with wide green eyes. I nodded.

Yes, Sam is dying. Yes, he won't make it.

Five minutes quickly turned into five hours, and when we woke up after our restless sleeping we got back on our feet and left Eric to mourn over the body of his brother Sam.

* * *

**Agh. Gomen for the sucky chapter. Gomen for not updating in forever. Gomen for a lot of things. - **

**I am so sorry.**

**That I am not a very good updater. **

**AGHagAhghagahg.**

**Emotional issues and laziness, BEGONE!**

**It didn't work.**

**Thanks for the favs and follows and reviews tho! It really means a lot that all of you like my writing so much! ^-^ Thanks again! Hopefully I'll update something again soon!**

**Write ya later!**


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